VancouverIAM Daily Blog Report: Should Vancouver Ban Municipal Political Parties? Bieksa and Salo avoid long-term injuries

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This is a selection of recent popular blog articles from VancouverIAM where you will find the best blogs from Vancouver, British Columbia as well as video uploads, social networking, rumors, and blog authoring.

Political Parties Make Vancouver Politics Less Democratic

A recent post from the Oldtown News blog is insisting that Vancouver's municipal political parties should be axed if the city is to have a chance at “real democracy.” The debate about campaign finance reform has been swirling, as of late, with Vision Vancouver Councillor Heather Deal forwarding a motion to outlaw corporate and union donations in the upcoming mayoral election. The post declares, “this political move by Ms Deal will go nowhere.” Oldtown News pointed to the fact that “NPA, VISION and COPE all rely heavily on non-voting citizens to fund their campaigns,” which tend to be organizations from the development, corporate and gambling sectors.

In fact, the post is convinced that the 2008 municipal election can be best described as “a campaign between NPA developers vs VISION developers.” This reliance on donations from non-voting entities is symbolic of the “decreasing influence voting-citizens have at the municipal level.” Vancouver's municipal election ranks as one of the most expensive political campaigns in Canada and since individual contributions have merely remained steady, donations from corporate and private interests have skyrocketed to match the cost of Vancouver's increasingly partisan political process. Oldtown News points to an incident during the 2005 election when “a convicted money-launderer donated nearly $200,000.00 to the party Ms Deal belongs to.” The post described the best way to get rid of these types of scandals is the complete removal of political parties from the municipal level of government.

Bieksa Avoids “Frightening” Achilles Injury

The latest post from KuklasKorner's Canucks and Beyond
blog discusses some of the details about the latest additions to the
Canucks roster of injured players. After getting stepped on by Vern
Fiddler's skate during Thursday's game, many thought that Kevin Bieksa
had severed or nearly severed his achilles tendon- a potential
career-ending injury. However, the post declared that Bieksa “probably
did dodge the worst bullet fired—the potential damage to that tendon
must have been frightening.”

Additionally, the post
also commented on Sami Salo's extremely broken nose. While Salo is
reportedly no stranger to the injury list, Canucks and Beyond stated
that he must be “taking steps to ensure that all of his annual allotted
infirmary time is jammed early into the season.” Salo has recently had
a metal plate surgically inserted into his face after “severely”
breaking his nose in last Thursdays game. He is expected to be out for
4-6 weeks. Noting that Salo is now boasting a bit of extra facial
protection, the post commented, “it may well reduce his annual injury
time significantly.”

Canucks and Beyond was confident that many Vancouver Canucks fans
will be relieved at the “reasonably positive prognosis” from these two
injuries.

Vancouver Sun “Outsourcing” Local Newsroom Work

A post in The Tyee by Tom Sandborn has revealed details surrounding a recent move by the publishers of the Vancouver to move several union jobs from the Vancouver newsroom to a non-union office run out of Hamilton, Ontario. Mike Bocking, the president of the union representing the affected workers, expressed stated that “our members are extremely concerned.” The post explained that layout work traditionally done by newsroom copy editors is going to be handled in a central location. Similar things are occurring at other CanWest papers, including Vancouver's The Province.

Bocking was insistent that this will lead to a substantial decrease in the quality of the Sun's news. “There are important issues here of local control and local voice...Layout might seem like a mechanical or packaging issue to a layperson, but it isn't really. It determines the play you are giving to a particular story.” The Tyee reports that local 2000 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers of Canada Union has already filed a grievance about the removal of union jobs. The post quoted Vancouver Sun Editor-in-Chief Patricia Graham downplaying the significance of the decision. She commented that the layout staff were performing what was “essentially a mechanical function,” while referring to Bocking's comments as, “pretty silly.” The Tyee also reports that layoffs are nothing new at Vancouver's CanWest-owned papers. “The size of newsroom staff at the Sun and Province has been cut in half since the early 1990s.”

Real-Estate Buyers Absorbing Commodities Cost

The Best Real Estate Anywhere,
a blog focused on the business of Vancouver's housing industry, is
reporting that we should expect Vancouver's real estate prices to
continue soaring. Pointing to a recent Canada Mortgage and Housing
Corporation presentation to local realtors, the post declared “I was
surprised to hear someone in that story say that real estate can’t go
down in the near future because of the fundamentals.” Although they
described the statement as only “partly valid,” the Best Real Estate
Anywhere asserted “land, construction materials, labour, development
costs - all are rising and show no sign of abating. As they rise the
cost of the finished product also has to rise, or there won’t be a
profit.”

The end-consumer, at the end of the day, is the one who invariably eats up the additional cost. Additionally, the post
revealed some of the latest statistics on the local real estate market.
“Friday we had 151 new listings and 176 sales,” which equates to a
116.55% sale/list. Comments surrounding the release of these numbers
were described as “less than inspiring.” The Best Real Estate Anywhere
was insistent that these latest numbers, in addition to the statements
made in the CMHC presentation were strongly indicative that “as long as
costs rise but buyers pay, prices will rise.”

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